This reproduces copies of works by two major early Afro-American poets now located in the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library.

Phillis Wheatley was born in Senegal and brought to the United States as a slave in 1761. She was purchased by a Boston tailor, John Wheatley, whose name she later took, and was given a strong classical education. She began writing poetry, basing her work on British models, and became the "best known American poet" of her day.

Albery A. Whitman (1851-1901) was born a slave in Kentucky. Orphaned after the Emancipation, he worked as a farm boy. He received about seven months of elementary education, and studied for six months at Wilberforce University, where he began writing and publishing poetry. Although he became the "leading Afro-American poet of his day," his long narrative poems were "essentially imitative," following the models of Byron and Tennyson.

ARRANGEMENT:

I. Phillis Wheatley.

A. Prayer, June 13, 1779.

B. An Elegiac Poem on the Reverend and Learned Mr. George Whitefield. Boston, 1770.